The excavation measured about 25 feet in length by 4-1/2 feet in width, and about 3 feet in depth. The dark brown stratum had a depth of 1-1/2 to 2 feet, and beneath it appeared the yellow clay of the surrounding field. The place was at a distance of about a quarter of a mile from the spot where the Lenape Stone had been found. In digging the trench many small stones were thrown up, but no human remains or implements were discovered. The earth was not thrown through a sieve. As the excavation was to have been continued in the spring, the trench and pile of earth were left undisturbed.
Bernard Hansell, the discoverer of the Lenape Stone, states that he found the carved gorget (fig. 23) in this heap of earth on Thursday the 8th of last month; his brother had previously found there several flint chips, and Hansell had gone to the spot, on the day in question, expressly to look for "Indian relics."
The day was warm and the trench full of water. The field was very muddy. Hansell found the stone, the perforation in which had attracted his attention, protruding a little from the mud on the outside of the heap, and in the yellow earth last thrown out. Without displacing it, he returned to the house, and brought his brother, William Hansell, to the spot, that the latter might witness his discovery. Then removing the stone from the mud, he washed it in the water of the trench, not rubbing it, but holding it in the water for about five minutes. The mud clinging to it, having melted and frozen several times within a few days, was very soft and dissolved easily. On the same day Hansell informed the writer of his discovery in a letter.
The stone is a soft, red shale, similar in appearance to the Lenape Stone. Unlike the specimens (figs. 19 and 20) found on the surface of the ground, its surface presents a very polished and rubbed appearance, as if it had been subjected to long wear after the carvings had been made. The lines, the edges of which are much worn and rubbed, do not seem sharply and deeply cut, as those of fig. 20 or the Lenape Stone, and the bottoms of the grooves, to which the soil still clings, appear rounded, as if cut with a dull point--as in the case of the shallow incisions upon fig. 19.